this post was submitted on 13 Mar 2025
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My previous phone used to pocket-dial the emergency services annoyingly often, and it's very not fun getting called back by the police to discuss why you're dialling and hanging up on emergency services multiple times over.
This automatic emergency call is fine, but they really do need to minimise the number of false positives, which it looks like they've taken good steps towards.
I had the same issue with my old Galaxy s7. Let me tell you, seeing "911" on your caller ID when youve been smoking all evening is not a fun experience.
I have a pixel watch 2 and have had a few false positives - one because it thought I had fallen (for some reason. I don't know why; I was just lying in bed at the time) and one because I didn't know you could press the button five times to call emergency services, so I let my kid play with the watch.
In both instances, the watch vibrated violently and constantly for about five seconds before initiating a call. During those five seconds, it displayed a prompt to cancel the upcoming call. I wasn't quite fast enough to cancel the call my kid started, but I did manage to cancel the one for the alleged fall. For the one that went through, I hung up just as it connected, so they called me back. They did not appear perturbed by the mistaken call, but it only happened once; if it were repeated like you described, they probably would have been more upset.
I agree that we should have false positives as rarely as possible, but I think having the opportunity to cancel a call from one is a good stopgap.
Had an old phone, around when smartphones started being a thing. Emergency services was #08. And with keys locked, # 0 and 8 were the only keys that would register. Literally couldn't have it in my pocket. Had to keep it in my bag. Probably 20 calls to emergency service before I figured out that those keys didn't lock.